Book Image

Exploring Microsoft Excel’s Hidden Treasures

By : David Ringstrom
Book Image

Exploring Microsoft Excel’s Hidden Treasures

By: David Ringstrom

Overview of this book

David Ringstrom coined the phrase “Either you work Excel, or it works you!” after observing how many users carry out tasks inefficiently. In this book, you’ll learn how to get more done with less effort. This book will enable you to create resilient spreadsheets that are easy for others to use as well, while incorporating spreadsheet disaster preparedness techniques. The time-saving techniques covered in the book include creating custom shortcuts and icons to streamline repetitive tasks, as well as automating them with features such as Tables and Custom Views. You’ll see how Conditional Formatting enables you to apply colors, Cell icons, and other formatting on-demand as your data changes. You’ll be empowered to protect the integrity of spreadsheets and increase usability by implementing internal controls, and understand how to solve problems with What-If Analysis features. In addition, you’ll master new features and functions such as XLOOKUP, Dynamic Array functions, LET and LAMBDA, and Power Query, while learning how to leverage shortcuts and nuances in Excel. By the end of this book, you’ll have a broader awareness of how to avoid pitfalls in Excel. You’ll be empowered to work more effectively in Excel, having gained a deeper understanding of the frustrating oddities that can arise daily in Excel.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Part 1: Improving Accessibility
6
Part 2:Spreadsheet Interactivity and Automation
12
Part 3: Data Analysis

The UNIQUE function

The UNIQUE function gives you a self-updating means of removing duplicates from another list. The =UNIQUE(C3:C12) formula in cell G3 of Figure 10.12 returns one of each country’s names from the list in cells C3:C12, spilling the results into cell G4 and beyond as needed:

Figure 10.12 – The UNIQUE function

The UNIQUE function has three arguments:

  • Array – The range of cells that you wish to remove duplicates from, which, in this case, is cells C3:C12.
  • by_col – An optional argument that defaults to TRUE, which instructs Excel to remove duplicates from columns. Use FALSE if you wish to instead remove duplicates across rows. In this case, I omitted the argument.
  • exactly_once – An optional argument that defaults to TRUE to remove duplicates. Use FALSE if you wish to display every item from the original range. In this case, I omitted the argument.

The =UNIQUE(C3:C12,TRUE,FALSE) formula...